Helping Wendy Birnbaum defend RCW 64.40 will help you too.

She is appealing a superior court ruling that, if allowed to stand, trashes RCW 64.40 that was put in place by the legislature specifically to reduce the time necessary to get permission to use your property. The legislature recognizes that time is money and put RCW 64.40 in place to allow permit applicants to recover damages when permits are held up past 120 days.

(1) Owners of a property interest who have filed an application for a permit have an action for damages to obtain relief from acts of an agency which are arbitrary, capricious, unlawful, or exceed lawful authority, or relief from a failure to act within time limits established by law…”

Read Wendy’s story and see if it meets the legislative intent of RCW 64.40.

On February 23, 2005, she filed a complete application for a conditional use permit to change the use of approximately one-half of her 110 acres near Orting from mobile homes to a recreational vehicle campground. We are talking about moving off a mobile home and parking an RV in its spot. All utilities are already in place. No clearing needs be done. The only real development that she wants to do is create a small manmade lake using runoff from the site.

By December of 2006 she had jumped all hoops put in front of her in a timely manner and was ready for Pierce County to make its decision. That decision, approving the permit, did not come until March 15, 2010, provided for over 30 new hoops, and came only after Birnbaum petitioned for a writ of mandate to compel the County to move forward.

Five years and hundreds of thousands of dollars of hoops later, plus at least three years of lost profits, and Birnbaum had her permit.

With the final decision in hand, Birnbaum could finally file suit under RCW 64.40, which provides a remedy of damages for property owners harmed by improper actions by government on land use applications. King County Superior Court Judge Bruce E. Heller disallowed Birnbaum’s suit by claiming that he was bound by the Appellate Court decision in Brower v. Pierce County (1999) that granting the permit to Brower was “adequate relief” even as he ignored other cases, including Supreme Court cases, that found damages could be awarded even after a permit was issued. CAPR has gotten involved in Birnbaum’s appeal so that Judge Heller’s ideological interpretation of the legislative intent of 64.40 does not become the new standard. CAPR is the organization that made Ron Sims eat his 65% CAO land grab!

Wendy Birnbaum has exhausted her resources. She is living on her husband’s retirement and a little income from the trailers currently on the property. Her husband passed away part way into this debacle. She has been financing this project by borrowing against the property but she can no longer do that because she does not have the income to support further borrowing. She pays $48,000 per year in property taxes to Pierce County so they can afford the bureaucrats that have bled her dry.

Most of you are aware of the enormous costs extracted prior to any construction activity and the routine flouting of RCW 64.40 by local planning and zoning departments. Contribute to the CAPR Legal Fund today so we can keep this suit in the appeals court. You may already have your house but think of your kids and grandkids trying to build theirs.

We only need another $20,000 to reverse this travesty. It costs ten times that for wasteful bureaucratic hoops on every building built. Please help us help you and Wendy today by making a tax-deductible donation today.

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